Islam and Liberty - Mohamed Charfi

I got to know about the book from Frontline article - http://www.frontline.in/fl2313/stories/20060714000607800.htm

The author, Mohamed Charfi is a professor in law and served as Education minister of Tunisia.

Introduction and first chapter explain the facts and consequence of fundamentalism.

In second chapter which is the best in this book dissects the Islamic law - Sharia. He took the case of punishment for apostasy - death penalty. It was formalized based on a prophet's tradition - hadith. And motivation to carry out that was more of political reasons. Likewise he took most of the controversial rulings of Shariah.

He then logically and authoritatively concludes that Muslim law is anachronistic and were best for that time. Later Sharia remained stagnant and Ulema (scholar) attributed divinity to it. All later research were crushed and Tartaric attack (under Chengis Khan) on Abbaside killed eminent thinkers of that time. This led ulema to shut the door of Ijtihad (research) because they were afraid that they will never able to raise to the level of their predecessors.

Mutazziltes were crushed and the works of Avicenna, Averroes and the likes were burnt and lost in history.

Muslim thinkers in the late 18th and early 19th century did elaborative study on this subject and came to a point that Islam doesn't propose any totalitarian divine law for mankind

Author's answer for contemporary plural society is secularism. And Islam should be taken to private sphere.

Third chapter deals about the notion of Islamic state.

Author states that in Madeena there was no Islamic state formed under prophet. Actual Islamic state took birth with the caliphate of Aboobacker and flourished in the reign of Umar

Two more points from the same chapter.

After Jesus' crucification, his followers took the principle of rendering unto Ceasor that which Ceasor's and unto God that which God's. Author states that it was not a tactic rather a fundamental doctrine.

Erdogan's Justice and Development party in Turkey explicitly accepted secularism. And it doesn't refer Sharia nor describes itself as Islamist. Author takes this case as a point that Islam can co-oexist with secularism, modernity and democracy.

Fourth chapter puts forth education policy to achieve the above said social changes.

All in all this book was a wonderful read.

Islam Muslim Muslim Samooham

This book is more of a pragmatic thinking and solutions than a theolgical discourse. Author narrates the socio-economic state of contermporary muslims in India.

He points out the hard realities such as social evils like divorce are there in muslim society which were earlier accused only on western societies. His another observation is ethics level of indian muslims in day-to-day dealings is lesser compared to west. He urges muslims to take these things seriously which we are lacking.

Conditions of urban poor sect cannot be compared to the poor in the time of prophet. In cities nothing comes free including basic necessities like clean water. To sustain life, consistent income is vital. Whereas in the times of prophet's and before him basic necessities were never denied.

Education is directly linked to the survival. Those who cannot read cannot survive in the contemporary world. I would term illeterate is similar to a handicapped person who has to depend on others for rudimentary needs.

I didn't complete the book because I lost interest midway.

2 Maths problem

I. Find the acute angle between the minute and hour needle of a clock for a given time H:M?

Minute needle angle, m = M * (360/60) = 6M
Hour needle Angle, h = H * (360/12) + M * ( (360/12) / 60) = 30H + M/2

Solution 1:
Acute Angle = arccos(cos(h-m))

Hint: Cos() will bring all angle from -1 to 1 range and arccos() will bring that to 0 to 180(pi)

Solution 2:
Difference in angle, d = |h-m|
or
d = (h-m)%360
Opposite angle, od = 360 - d
Acute angle = 180 - x
Obtuse angle = 180 + x
where x = |(od - d)/2| = |180 - d|
i.e, Acute Angle = 180 - |180-d|

II. Given a circular queue of size n (0..n-1). Other variables are front and rear of the queue. Find a formula to find number of elements in queue from n, front and rear?

Solution:
number of elements = (rear - front) % n

That is the magic of mod operator.

Amina Books

On Friday 1st August, I visited Amina book shop in Thrissur. Its a one room shop opposite to Chettiyangadi mosque in Post Office Road. I had been there before and purchased one book in Sufi literature - "Arifakulude thathwashasthram". I didnt get a chance to go through that book.
I had a chat with the proprietor, Mr.Hamza. I enquired, if there is any other book apart from Ihya' ulum al-din in Sufi literature that is translated to Malayalam. And to his knowledge these are the 2 books. I have purchased full volume Ihya' ulum al-din from there. It costed me Rs.2300. There are 2 low price edition of the same book for Rs.600 and Rs.1200. I preferred the better one, because I thought this book may be useful for my entire life and to the next generation rather than one-time reading. Mr.Hamza had taken my contact number so that he can inform me about any new arrival in this genre.

I checked with him if people are buying Ihya. He said eventhough people buy this book, most selling book is the one recommended in a Jeevan TV programme hosted by a Moulavi. Matter of fact that book is written by him on prayers and ways to solve petty problems in life. Solutions are like to read so and so chapter of Quran for n number of times. Absolute crap!

Solitude

Life without a company of woman is really tough, especially if we miss one. I have just completed a novel on a similar theme. But what I wanted to convey here is that of a book which i am reading now. That book may change my life forward. I believe till now I tried to pick up books from a broad range. Even though I read books in Islam, I had to read contemporary literature in order to understand the nature of life. Various aspects of life is not covered "directly" in any of the books in Islam which I had read - matter of fact I could not get from the translation of Quran which I follow. I had to read Quran, history, philosophy, novels, short stories, current affairs, blogs, mathematics, etc. to quench my thirst which I am doing at my leisure. But this book from Imam Gazhali a 11th century scholar, a Sufi, a traveler has something different to say. I am reading his "Ihya' ulum al-din" translated to Malayalam. This is a 40(or 36) volume book in Malayalam.
I just started with the first one. This is opening up a new thought direction in me. I don't want to label it to any. But this is dealing with the subjects my soul seeking for and it is in-depth. Matter of fact I may even redefine my area of reading after this. Don't know really, but I am bit excited!

If tomorrow comes - Sidney Sheldon

A masala novel from Sidney Sheldon and while I was reading, felt like watching a typical Hindi movie. In my opinion the plot of the story was too narrow, that i didn't feel it much interesting. And I left the book midway. Anyway it was a timepass to read through and may be the sole purpose of this novel.

Othappu and Aalaahayude Penmakkal

This novel in Malayalam is from an eminent writer and activist Sara Joseph. It has got Kendra Sahithya Academy award. The characters illustrated in this work are brilliant and represents a sample of society. Even though the novel is based on the story of a nun - Margaleetha who discontinued from that service in search of truth, the character I liked most is the priest named Kareekan who is also the lover of Margaleetha. He wanted to accomplish lot of things in life, wanted to find the meaning of life through continuous research but he is not confident in whatever steps he takes in life. He is always confused at the crucial stages. When I follow his story, I got the message from the author as if to a young revolutionary. That was a brilliant character. About Margaleetha, just get a copy of the novel and find it there :))

Another novel from the same author is "Alaahayude penmakkal". I had read this novel about couple of years back, may be before my marriage. The plot of the story is an under developed outskirt of Thrissur - a town in Kerala. It tells the story of a poor Christian family living in the time of urbanising their neighbourhood. The main character is a small girl. And she along with her family witnessed the impact of urbanisation. Again this is also an award winning novel from Sara Joseph.

I have thorougly enjoyed both these novel and helped to improve my outlook.